In the Dreamscapes & Belief exhibit last October, both my pieces were mistitled. Sovereign was labeled as Sovereign Oaths, and this piece was called Embodied. I found myself mildly annoyed by this, but at the same time, I couldn’t really be angry about it. Sovereign Oaths, Oaths Embodied—the word oath applies to both pieces.
Oath. To me that word has a kind of bite to it. Maybe it’s the single syllable. Oath. Maybe it’s the Frank Peretti book I read back in 7th grade that still lingers in my conscious: small towns and strange goo and the realization that no one is safe, there is no escape.
There’s something about that opening o—the way it rhymes with loaded, and the voiced air required right out the gate for the word to leave your lungs. But it ends on that unvoiced th.
All that power.
Gone?
Never.
Lurking, threatening, biding its time.
Something sworn that stabs you like a sword.
A reckoning that runs you through.
Oaths, Embodied is one of the many pieces that helped me process my ambivalence to a faith tradition entrenched in perpetuating systemic harm. I had long made myself a casualty of the ideology that dark is bad, light is good, and we should all hope to suffer our way to holiness. Strangely, in all those years of shredding myself apart, I found a fire in my bones. There was something worth fighting for, worth proclaiming, worth defending, worth protecting—but it wasn’t anything I was taught.
My questions have always been a little too pointed for Sunday School teachers and youth pastors and college chaplains. I tested the patience of many a small group leader and guidance counselor. I’ve been called argumentative, stubborn, difficult. If only I could have applied myself to their ideals! I shudder to think of the harm I’ve done, following their lead. How much more damage would I have gladly borne if I hadn’t sought to reconcile my lived experience with what a church dictated for me?
Faith remains a complicated thing for me. I don’t talk about it often, save to a few very close friends. Even then, I find myself without words. What do I believe in? And is it my belief that matters? If so, to whom? Some religions require no faith at all, and I find this both foreign and fascinating. What is it that faith satisfies? Do I need to believe in something? And if I do need to believe in something, do I need a doctrine or explanation for it?
I live with a gaping wound in my chest, a fevered heart in my throat, and a hope embedded so deep in me not even I can extinguish it.
Is that what faith is?
If all my questions are me talking a whole lot of shit without any real argument, so be it. But I had to ask. I used to demand answers with the same vehemence that others demanded answers from me. I’ve learned a lot about (un)certainty though, over the years. I’d argue a lack of certainty and willingness to be wrong has made me far more compassionate than I used to be. I’m kinder to myself and others. I’m open to gentleness in ways I thought were impossible for me to receive.
When Ashley Nora asked me about my work, she posed the question “What does joy look like, to you? I see a lot of grief in these pieces, a lot of trauma. So, what does joy look like?”
I shrugged, but not because I didn’t know the answer. I’m not used to talking about my thought process behind my work—not with my mouth, anyway. I’m far more interested in how others connect with my art or writing. I want to know what they see in it. I suppose that goes both ways, though, so I’m learning to entertain others’ curiosity.
“It looks like this,” I told her.
I pointed to Sovereign, my first painting after brain surgery and a portrait of how I hoped to move through the world. I pointed Oaths, Embodied—a promise I had made to myself: to believe in my own worth and dignity despite every message to the contrary. The joy is in valuing everything I’ve learned to love about myself, everything I’ve come to treasure about the world.
The joy is in discovering over and over again the infinite ways there are to find a friend, to feel at home, to fight for justice, to fall in love with a song, to figure out a story.
It’s in choosing who I will be, and allowing myself to be as honest as I can in the moment, and leaving room for possibility.
When I came across this piece and decided to submit it for the exhibit, I had the idea to do another version of it. Fresh off finishing an 18×24 stretched canvas I hadn’t thought I could pull off, you could say I was feeling bold. Although I started the sketch in September, I didn’t finish it until November. It’s a new year and I’m still not done with this painting yet, but that’s okay.
I got frustrated by the background, unsatisfied with gradients that didn’t quite work the way I wanted them to. I still have no idea how I’m going to finish the skull. I’m pretty sure I’m going to burn through at least three or four black Sharpies, working on the tree branches.
I’m okay with all of this. I’m enjoying the challenge. As I paint an iteration of something I previously did in marker, I’m remembering all over again what I wanted to say with the first piece and what I’ve learned since and what still holds true.
That’s joy.
And it’s the most honest way I know how to pray.
V. H. King's Ink 